In a bid to shape the future of Tehran’s nuclear program, US and Iranian officials commenced a new series of indirect discussions in Switzerland on Thursday. This comes as President Trump’s deadline for reaching an agreement approaches, possibly by this weekend.
The delegations from both nations arrived separately at the Omani diplomatic residence located by Lake Geneva.
Images released by Oman’s Foreign Ministry later depicted US special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, in talks with Omani Foreign Minister Bader al-Busaidi, reviewing Iranian proposals.
Al-Busaidi tweeted at 1:30 p.m. local time, “Today in Geneva, we have been sharing creative and positive ideas. US and Iranian negotiators have now paused for a break and will reconvene later today. We are hopeful for further progress.”
This meeting comes exactly a week after President Trump informed his Board of Peace in Washington that a decision regarding the Iranian regime would be made “over the next, probably, 10 days.”
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, the president cautioned that Iran is “developing missiles capable of reaching the United States,” along with other “sinister designs.”
“We are in negotiations with them,” Trump said. “They want to make a deal but we haven’t heard those sacred words: ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon.’”
US officials have pushed to broaden the talks to include discussions of Iran’s ballistic missile program as well as the regime’s killing of thousands of protesters last month — but Tehran has refused to be drawn on those topics.
Ali Shamkhani, a prominent adviser to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote on X ahead of Thursday’s talks that “[i]f the main issue of the negotiations is Iran’s non-development of nuclear weapons, this is consistent with the Supreme Leader’s fatwa [religious declaration] and Iran’s defense doctrine, and an immediate agreement is within reach.”
Meanwhile, Trump has ordered two US aircraft carrier groups into position for possible strikes. One carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and its accompanying strike group, has been in the Middle East since late January.
A second carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford is currently en route to Israel’s Mediterranean coast from the Greek island of Crete.
